In You I Found A Rhyme
by natsora
Summary: Jaal is curious about the aliens on board the Tempest, in particular the Pathfinder. Sara Ryder is confident, a rough and tumble experienced combatant, but who is she really? A random chance affords Jaal the opportunity to learn about her hidden talent.


In You I Found A Rhyme Tags: Pre-relationship, awkward interspecies interaction, humour, hidden talent, fluff, romance Summary:

Jaal is curious about the aliens on board the Tempest, in particular the Pathfinder. Sara Ryder is confident, a rough and tumble experienced combatant, but who is she really? A random chance affords Jaal the opportunity to learn about her hidden talent.

End Notes

ushataliin - global tool

Credit to Angara Expansion Project and Myrddinderwydd. Check out their AO3 for fics!

Title of story taken from A Song for Someone by U2.

* * *

"Guys? A little help here," Ryder's voice came through the comms, Jaal could hear echoes of gunfire punctuating her request.

He gazed down from his perch, his sniper rifle resting against his chest as he surveyed the situation. What was supposed to be a simple search for missing colonists had turned into a big mess, chiefly a huge adhi problem. Tracking the colonists weren't a major problem with SAM's help. But finding them trapped in a cave littered with empty cages, surrounded on all sides by adhi bigger and stronger than any Jaal had encountered before, was unexpected.

"What happened?" Ryder asked, the question was purely rhetorical.

But one of the not-so-missing colonist answered as they were suddenly in a fight for their lives against crazed adhi. "We were trying to rear them for food," he said from inside one of the cages obviously meant to house the supposedly domesticated adhi. The shimmering orange barricade was the only thing separating the colonists from the chomping jaws of their former livestocks.

"Like chickens on Earth," another helpfully supplied. Jaal gathered it was an Earth fauna the size of an adhi with jaws as big, teeth as sharp, if it was provided as a source of comparison.

Ryder jerked her head at him. Jaal didn't need her to give a verbal command, they had gone on plenty of missions by now. He knew what she wanted almost instinctively. He held back and sought out a perch for himself. Ryder and Drack were front line heavy hitters while he was the sniper that covered their backs. Despite the rather dire situation they found themselves in, Jaal couldn't help but admire the way Ryder moved in battle. Where Drack was all muscles and brute strength, Ryder was the sharp scalpel striking at the heart of the enemy, but she was no less powerful and destructive.

"How did you end up inside the cage and not the other way around?" Ryder asked as she waded into the hordes of adhi swarming around the cage, firing as she worked to free their former owners.

"We were trying to grow them faster and bigger!" they confessed as they cried and whimpered in fear. "We were experimenting with some gene modification and it didn't go well."

That was an understatement. Jaal could hear Ryder's snort of exasperation through the comms. The adhi apparently didn't take too kindly to being livestock.

Drack laughed. "Faster and bigger to eat you you mean."

As much as shooting adhi weren't difficult, the sheer number of them was what made the situation dangerous. They had but so much ammo. But Ryder didn't seemed worried. She charged right into the fray. Blue-purple lights like the twilight of Voeld engulfed the Pathfinder as she turned into a pure physical force, throwing adhi out of her path as she tried to clear the space out. Her shotgun bucked in her hands, every shot sending guts and bones splattering everywhere. It was disgusting but yet… strangely elegant.

It took real effort to refocus. A slight shift of his scope, he fired. The round blowing up the adhi running towards Ryder's unprotected back. She half turned and caught the spray of blood across her helmet. "Sorry," he said.

"Never say sorry for covering my six, Jaal," Ryder chuckled, wiping her visor down. They didn't have time for more than an exchange before more adhi leapt into the fray.

* * *

Jaal looked at Ryder and Drack. Both of them were coated, liberally so, with adhi guts, blood and offal. The resulting stench was unpleasant. He was the only clean one, having been so far away from the battlefield. "Gil is not going to be happy," he said, glancing at them and the still relatively clean interior of the Nomad.

Ryder chuckled. "He will get over it. I'm not going to walk back to the Tempest and there is no good spot for it to land here."

"No way I'm walking back," Drack growled as he dragged his bulk into the back of the vehicle.

Ryder took the driver's seat while he had shotgun. There was simply no space for Drack and Jaal himself to fit in the rear together. She sighed as she buckled herself in. "I'm glad the colonists weren't harmed, but it's a shame we had to kill all the adhi."

"But they were rabid."

"Still…" she grimaced as she pulled her helmet off. Her hair were plastered to her forehead by the strange salt secretion humans get when they exerted themselves. "I wish we didn't have to kill them. They didn't asked to be experimented on."

Jaal grunted. He had no good reply to that, but it filled his chest to know not all aliens looked upon Andromeda like a playground to mess with as they saw fit. It was important the Pathfinder wanted to integrate, rather than simply take over.

The Nomad lurched into motion, trailing behind the colonists' own vehicle. Ryder was insistent they escorted them back to the outpost. "I think they attract trouble like flies to shit," her words, not Drack's or his.

Now that Jaal had time to think about it, that described Ryder perfectly though his ushataliin (global tool) only had a vague translation of the words flies and shit. But most colonists lacked Ryder's ability to get themselves out of it.

He had caught himself observing the Pathfinder on several occasions. She was a force of nature, negotiating with Evfra, battling kett with her shotgun and biotics with a ferocity matched only by the Heskaarl. She made it all looked effortless. But it was the easy laugh, the sheer brilliant smile, the way her eyes twinkled that hit him right in the guts. He didn't know what to make of it.

As the Tempest came into view, he resolved to put it out of his mind as he braced himself for Gil's annoyance at the state of the Nomad.

* * *

"Fine, fine," Ryder sighed. "I'll clean it up all right?"

Gil had his arms folded across his chest as he glowered at the Pathfinder. Jaal watched on in amusement. Drack had trooped off to shower the moment he stowed his weapons. The others were still busy at the outpost, helping the colonists find their feet.

"Just go," she shooed, flicking one soiled gauntlet at him. "Have fun at the bar on my behalf ok? I'll get this cleaned up."

Gil shrank back, his lips twisting in disgust as flecks of dried adhi guts dropped onto the clean cargo bay floor.

"Do you need help?" Jaal asked, stepping forward as he closed the door on his locker.

Ryder shook her head. "You all earned your rest, just go have fun. I'll join you all once I'm done."

Gil's eyes darted between Ryder's gore splattered armour and the guts coated interior of the Nomad. He threw his hands up and stalked off. "I'll see you at the bar, Jaal?" he asked.

Jaal shrugged. "Sure let me get cleaned up and I'll see you there."

Ryder was already stripping out of her armour and piling it in a corner, before taking her shotgun and sitting down at the bench.

"Are you sure you don't need my help?" he offered again, glancing at the amount of work ahead for Ryder. "It will go faster if I help."

She shook her head, her mind already focused on the task before her, stripping down her shotgun for cleaning and maintenance. "Don't mind me, just go ahead and enjoy yourself. I'll be there before you know it."

Jaal shrugged and left Ryder to her work. He decided to get a head start on cleaning his own weapons since Drack would likely take a long time. It's completely impossible to shower if Drack was wedged in there.

* * *

Jaal had completely lost track of time. Cleaning his weapon had something mediative about it. And before he knew it, time had raced past. The Tempest was entirely empty by the time he stepped out of the shower. He sighed, contented as warmth radiated from his skin. Nothing quite beat a hot shower.

As he padded bare feet towards the tech lab to dress, his keen ears caught the edges of a song. Eyes narrowed, he allowed his ears to lead him. Passed the tech lab, passed the central console towards… the cargo bay? He hesitated at the door. Wasn't the Tempest empty now? Everyone should be at the bar at this time.

Curiousity got the better of him. A palm pressed against the holo-lock, it cycled and slid open silently. The music was louder as he stepped inside tentatively. Gentle strings strummed, musical notes vibrated the air. His breath hitched at the sight before him.

There in the cargo bay, the Nomad already cleaned and shifted out of the way, was the Pathfinder. But as remarkable she was, it wasn't what shook Jaal. Dressing in a tight knee length shorts and a loose t-shirt at least two sizes too large, Ryder danced.

Her motion was fluid, her body an extension of the music. He had never seen her moved this way before. There was an elegance and grace beyond her battlefield prowess, beyond her sharp and confident manner dealing with Evfra and Tann. It was breathtaking. Jaal gripped the railing as he stood stock still, unable to peel his eyes away.

Ryder's hands traced shapes as she flowed from one form to the next, the passage of a curled finger through air lit all his nerve endings on fire. He was captivated. This was more mesmerising than the yevara's song under the ice, more mysterious than the dark space beyond the scourge. As the music soared, so did she, lifting her hands and legs, leaping and spinning; it tugged at his chest, dragging feelings he didn't know possible. As the music dipped, so did she, bowing and bending, body hunching and couching; an unmistakable yearning to hold her, to protect her, filled him. He couldn't imagine motions and gestures could speak this eloquently.

As the music faded, Jaal was disappointed to see Ryder's exquisite dance come to an end. Her chest heaved as she panted, a hand brought up to sleek her hair back from her face. He couldn't say what it was that attracted her attention but, the near squeak that came out of her mouth when she realised she wasn't alone was decidedly unlike Ryder.

"How long have you been standing there?" she demanded, her voice pitched higher than usual.

Jaal cleared his throat and walked towards the lift. It wouldn't do to have Ryder crane her neck just to hold a conversation with him.

"Wait," she cried as the lift hummed, taking him to the lower level. "Why are you just wearing a towel? Where are your clothes? Shouldn't you be with the others?"

Jaal laughed, a deep throaty one that buzzed in his chest. "One question at a time, Ryder. First, I was just done with my shower, hence the towel." One by one he checked off her question, counting them out on his fingers and approaching her as he did so. He finally ended up standing just an arm's length away. "You dance very well."

Ryder shuffled away from him like some skittish animal, so unlike the sheer force of personality she usually had. He frowned, wondering if he had overstepped. "I've really enjoyed how graceful you were."

She cleared her throat loudly like she had something lodged there as she wrapped her arms around herself, ducking her head.

"The way you twirl and spin is really something I've never seen the likes of before."

"Thank you," she managed to croak after a bout of coughing.

Jaal frowned. It was only then he noticed how red Ryder looked. She was near red. Flushed skin on angaras usually meant they were getting down with something. And with the way red blotched Ryder's skin, it worried him.

"Are you all right?" he was tempted to call upon Lexi to check on Ryder but Lexi was with the others and so he did the next best thing. "SAM, is Ryder sick?"

"The Pathfinder isn't sick," Ryder's eyes widened, lips parted as if to speak, "she is just experiencing an increased blood flow to her face and her—"

"Shut up SAM!" she interjected, burying her face into her hands.

Jaal was pretty sure he heard Ryder threatening to shut SAM down if they spilled the beans through her hands. He wondered what beans were and why spilling them would necessitate shutting SAM down. But before he could process the information, she was already shooing him out of the cargo bay.

"Go get changed now," she said, flicking her hands at him, face averted. "Go, go, go."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to offend," he said as he backtracked.

She shook her head almost vigorously, the tips of the nubs by the side of her head remained a bright red. Worry squeezed his chest. "No, no. I'm not mad, I'm just—"

Walking with her eyes looking everywhere but at where she was going was a recipe for trouble. Ryder, despite all the grace and elegance she displayed earlier, tripped. Instinct took over, Jaal stepped quickly towards her, hand stretched out to steady her. She fell against his chest. The weight felt good, he filed that knowledge to the back of his mind, to be processed when he had the time to.

"Are you all right?" he asked, peering down to get a good look at her face.

The intensity of the flush had faded somewhat and she chuckled. "I'm fine…"

Relief on her face drained rapidly away to reveal only sheer horror underneath. Her eyes widened, up close they looked almost terrifying in the amount of whites he could see.

"Jaal…" she croaked, her voice strangled in her throat. "What happened to your towel?"

Now that she mentioned it, there was a sudden coolness around his nether regions. He looked behind him, a corner of his white towel got caught in a rack in his haste to keep her for falling and it had unravelled. The white towel looked almost forlorn on the floor.

"Oh fuck, I've been pressing against your—" her words devolved into animalistic growls of frustration as the flush returned with renewed intensity. Ryder pulled away from him, tugging her arm away. He found his fingers were stiff, unwilling to relinquish the warmth he had in his grip. She stared at him once she had gotten two steps away. Her eyes wide as she raked them from his head to his toes and back again, lingering somewhere in the middle before she gasped, "Oh fuck, damn it." She pinned her gaze to the floor and went around him to retrieve his towel. Limp towel in hand, she thrusted it in his direction. "You should…"

Now this Jaal understood, this was embarrassment. Maybe that's what it was all this time. He laughed. "You don't have to worry, angaras do not have the sense of aversion that it seems you humans do regarding nudity. It's common to share communal showers and baths in the nude."

Ryder had both her hands up over her face. "Just… please… put me out of my misery."

He took the towel from her and wrapped it around his waist, but he hesitated to leave. It wasn't his intention to cause offence by accidental nudity, he had to make sure. "Ryder, I hope I've not—"

"No, no. It's fine. We humans tend to be a little prudish about such things," she spluttered as she pressed her hands into his bare back, pushing him towards the door.

Her touch lit fires all along his back and it's reaching places that it was definitely ill-advised. He clinched the towel tighter around his waist. Maybe making a hasty retreat to his room was in order. But as he crossed the threshold of the door, Ryder called out.

"This has got to remain a secret between us," she hissed, eyes flashing and meeting his properly for the first time since the accidental exposure.

If it wasn't for the unwanted heat pooling between his legs, he would have laughed at Ryder's less than confident manner, but the flash of Peebee's mischievous smirk streaked across his mind and he shuddered. "Yes," he agreed hastily, but a pang tightened his chest. Ryder danced so beautifully it's a shame that she hid this part of herself away. Her dancing deserved a stage of its own.

"But," he blurted before he could call it back.

She held his gaze, warm and open. They threatened to drown him if he let them.

"But?" she prompted.

A grin spread across his lips. "You should dance for me again sometime."

She rocked back on her heels, hand braced against the door. "Truly, you didn't think the dance was horrible?"

"What?" he shook his head, "It took my breath away, and I hope you do me the honour to dance again one day."

"Okay."

It was so soft he almost missed it. But his smile widened further, lighting up his eyes and reminding him what's happening underneath the thin piece of fabric around his waist.

"I'll hold you to that, Ryder."

"Sara," she whispered. "Call me Sara."

Jaal dipped his head. "I'll like to see you dance again, Sara."

And she graced him with a smile so sheepish, so tender it filled his chest with an emotion he couldn't quite name. But he'd love to feel it again and again.

"It's a deal, Jaal."


End file.
